The present disclosure is directed to materials for joining electrical or mechanical components, and more particularly to materials for attaching electronic components and associated devices onto electronic substrates.
As electronic devices become more advanced, the ability to quickly connect increasingly fine pitched metalized features among combinations of substrates is becoming increasingly difficult. Traditionally, depending on substrate type, these connections have been produced by screen printing solder paste or anisotropic conductive paste (ACP), applying anisotropic conductive film (ACF), or by use of preforms, wave soldering, wire bonding, or solder wire. However, each of these methods has individual drawbacks. Screen printing technology is pitch limited and not applicable in many applications, such as flex attach. ACF is highly pressure dependent, offers only a low current carrying capacity connection, degrades over time, and is costly to manufacture. Preforms need to be placed in or around solder deposits to keep them in position during processing. Wave soldering requires large amounts of energy and is not applicable in many attach applications. Wire bonding is a relatively slow and costly process with high reliability issues for many applications. Lastly, solder wire is also a slow process and is prone to splattering flux or solder to unwanted areas of a substrate.